Bless This Mess

Last Night the Library Saved My Life

This eventful week has been marred by the last-minute realization that I needed to go to a clinic for a mandatory TB screening. I technically wasn’t due for one until next year, but due to schedule conflicts and budget cuts (big surprise), they were fitting two years’ worth of patient groups into one testing. Add to that the rumor that health techs had been laid off so there were less people working, and you can see why the experience got out of hand. It was a clusterfuck of a wasted evening.

I drove by the clinic twice and the line was out the door, down the block, and into the street. I finally realized I couldn’t put it off any longer and parked two blocks away and got in line. I waited an hour, which is something my arthritic body really can’t handle, for the privilege of being stuck with a needle containing tuberculosis. I had been looking forward to spending the evening with our friends Jake and K who had just arrived in-town from an epic cross-country adventure. Instead I got to wait in a line.

To top it all off, I was an irrational, raging ball of PMS.

So last night was awful and I apologize for throwing a fit on twitter. If my iphone hadn’t died on me (further improving my mood, let me tell you!) my twitter feed would have been nothing but an hour-long stream of cusswords. Luckily for you, it died almost immediately, and luckily for me, I had library books in my purse.

If there is anything I can take away from this experience it’s that books, once again, save the day.

I was thinking about the fucking Japan “checkups” every year, too. Chest X-rays, blood tests, ECGs all in public of course…joy. And never go and live there after 40 because they also add a “drink this chalk smoothie so we can X-ray your guts” type thing and a “view the stomach through a tube through your nostrils” type thing. I thought it was a myth until my boss did it. But I’m just complaining…sorry about your TB test. That’s truly stink.

Trackbacks

[…] a year early due to budget cuts and this unfortunately coincided with a rather large amount of PMS. The event didn’t go well. Then on Wednesday, a black widow got inside my house and tried to murder myself and my daughter […]